Here are the things you need to know for this story to make sense:

• Aaron Rodgers is friends with Boyz II Men.
• The Packers lost to the 49ers yesterday.
• Wait, did I just say “Aaron Rodgers is friends with Boyz II Men”?

Jesus. I really need to become an NFL quarterback. Anyway, here goes:

According to TMZ, Rodgers asked Boyz II Men to sing the national anthem before the opener at Lambeau Field. Nathan Morris of the group laid a bet on the table. If the Packers lost the game, Morris proposed, Rodgers would have to wear a 49ers jersey through this entire week. Morris would have had to wear a Packers jersey through this week had Green Bay won, but he’s not a professional football player — he doesn’t have to go to team meetings and film room and all other game-prep functions wearing the colors of the opposing team. [Shutdown Corner]

As a fan of Boyz II Men, football, and stupid shenanigans that result in someone famous being forced to do something embarrassing, I should love this story. And yet, here I sit, in a living room located squarely in Eastern Pennsylvania, FURIOUS that Nathan Morris of Boyz II Men is a 49ers fan. Philadelphia’s own Nathan Morris of Boyz II Men, who sang a song called “Motownphilly,” cheers for a team from literally across the country. A team that he probably only started liking because they were good back when he was a kid. This simply will not do. I mean, what am I supposed to do with this information? Next you’ll tell me DJ Jazzy Jeff likes the Mets, or Hall & Oates root for the Cowboys.

The whole thing makes me so angry I could huck a battery at a toddler.

This is a video of Charles Barkley in a bar doing a karaoke version of “End of the Road” by Boyz II Men. Let all the parts of that sentence really sink in for a minute. 1) Charles Barkley. 2) In a bar. 3) Doing karaoke. 4) Singing “End of the Road” by Boyz II Men. 5) On video. YES. And as if all that weren’t enough, I have some more exciting news for you: Charles Barkley is a terrible singer. TERRIBLE. Like, he’s so bad that he blows right past “Ugh, get this guy off the stage” and lands firmly in “Jesus Christ, this is almost like performance art, let’s try to get him to sing ‘The Greatest Love of All’ or something just to see what happens.” As one of the Internet’s foremost experts on “End of the Road,” I can confidently say that the first 60 seconds of this video represent the single worst rendition of the song I’ve ever heard.

But then.

BUT THEN.

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Nationals’ rookie Bryce Harper held his first ever youth baseball camp yesterday, taking time out of his very busy schedule to work with hundreds of Washington area kids on their hitting and fielding. While that is a very cool thing for a 19-year-old professional athlete to do, it is not my favorite part of the story. He also brought a giant check for $25,000 made out to the Greater Washington Urban League, which is also very cool because (a) giving back to the community that supports you and your team is a nice thing to do in general, and (b) giant checks are awesome and they should be utilized in financial transactions whenever possible. But, despite the dual-pronged coolness of this gesture, it is also not my favorite part of the story.

My favorite part of the story, you see, takes place around the 1:03 mark of the video posted below, when Bryce Harper addresses a group of kids working on their batting stances and dispenses this expert baseball advice: “Be as sexy as you can.”

I would have really liked to have been a fly on the wall of those kids’ homes last night when their parents asked them about baseball camp:

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Despite the team’s on-field struggles and reports of growing dissension in the clubhouse, Red Sox team president Larry Lucchino stated earlier today that manager Bobby Valentine will remain with the team at least until the end of this season.

Red Sox president Larry Lucchino left no doubt about Bobby Valentine’s fate for the short term, stating in no uncertain terms his manager won’t be fired before the end of the season.

In an interview Thursday morning on Boston sports radio station WEEI, he was asked by host John Dennis whether Valentine would “unequivocally” remain as manager for the rest of this season. Lucchino replied with a simple “yes.” [ESPN]

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Ideally you’d like a little more elaboration on your job status from your boss than a one-word answer, but I suppose it’s better than nothing. Three letters better, to be exact. Anyway, I mainly bring this up because I just wanted to remind all of you that one time Bobby Valentine got ejected from a baseball game he was managing, then put on a fake mustache and snuck back into the dugout only to be spotted by the umpire and ejected again one inning later.

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Felix Hernandez started for the Seattle Mariners yesterday against the Tampa Bay Rays, and he put up the following stats: 9 innings pitched, 113 pitches, 77 strikes, 12 strikeouts, 0 runs allowed, 0 hits allowed, 0 walks allowed. Yup, that’s a perfect game.

The stats don’t even do it justice, either. I know the phrase “perfect game” has the word perfect right there up front, but that just refers to the spotless score sheet. He was completely dominant. It looked like one of those Little League games where a 6-foot-tall kid with a mustache mows down a bunch of terrified 11-year-olds wearing the helmets with the cages on the front while all the parents in the stands grumble about wanting to see his birth certificate (or, if they’re funnier, his driver’s license). Within the relatively small subset of perfect games thrown throughout baseball history, I’ve got to believe this one falls somewhere on the Even Perfecter side of the spectrum, if that’s even a thing. I know he earned the nickname King a long time ago, but if he hadn’t, this was the type of performance that would have done it. I suppose the point I’m trying to make here is that Felix Hernandez was pretty good at baseball yesterday.

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If you are anything like me, you spent a substantial chunk of your childhood parked in front of the television watching VHS tapes of people doing dunks. I mean, you did other things, too — rode your bike, chucked rocks at stuff, got grounded for cussing, etc. — but, primarily, you wore out the tape on those videocassettes while eating cereal. There were a lot of these videos released in the early-to-mid ’90s, but the gold standard was the NBA Superstars series put together by Hardwood Classics.

NBA Superstars was collection of videos that contained 3-4 minute highlight packages set to popular music from the time, typically focused on an individual player, but occasionally based on a unifying theme. The first one was released in 1990, and contained montages dedicated to Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Dominique Wilkins, Charles Barkley, Isiah Thomas, and Julius Erving, as well as one about players from years past. I love it like a child. So when I found all the clips on YouTube recently, I could not have been more excited, and I felt it was important to share them all with you. Put on your doofy sweaters and grab your synthesizers, people. We’re taking a trip in the Wayback Machine.

NOTE: Did you know there is no Wikipedia entry for the NBA Superstars series? This upsets me on a number of very deep, personal levels.

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